Issue 14 : Gov't Clears the Pathway for Ethio Telecom Engagement in the Financial Sector

Hello, Welcome to this week's edition of Shega Weekly Newsletter ( Issue # 14 ). If would like to advertise on Shega, fill in this form. 

Gov't Clears the Pathway for Ethio Telecom Engagement in the Financial Sector Last week, the Council of Ministers amends the establishment of Ethio Telecom establishment regulation to expand the state's enterprises legality to operate in the non-telecommunication sectors. According to sources that informed the Capital, "the regulation amendment mainly targets to allow the state telecom operator to invest in the financial sector."It is remembered that National Bank released a regulation that allows non-financials state enterprises and non-financial private companies to engage in digital financial service delivery, which effectively allowed Ethio Telecom to participate in the mobile money business. The recent establishment regulation amendment by Council Ministers moves Ethio Telecom closer to launch a mobile money service. Read More.

Lesan Adds Tigrgina Language 

Lesan introduces machine language translation for the Tigrinya language. The translation pairs with  Amharic and English.  Lesan is a machine translation company for Ethiopian languages that builds technology to open up the web to more communities.

Founded by Asmelash Teka Hadgu and Adam Beaudoin, Lesan offers APIs that allow companies to instantly and accurately translate content to and from Ethiopian languages. Read More.

Ethiopia-born Sara Menker's Gro Intelligence Closes $85M in Series B Round Sara Menker, the founder of Gro-Intelligence,  raised  $85 million in a Series B round. Sara is an Ethiopian-born Wall Street veteran. Gro Intelligence is a startup that uses artificial intelligence to provide access to global agricultural data. Read more. 

JCC and Master Card Foundation Launches  Entrepreneurship CompetitionJobs Creation Commission (JCC) in collaboration with MasterCard Foundation is set to award 200 new and innovative businesses to the program that will be held in the coming three years.

The entrepreneurship competition and award called Biruh aims to target innovative business that " solve critical cross-sectoral challenges to meet public needs and grow to become a profitable company on the way". The competition will provide a grant and funding access as well as us an acceleration opportunity. 

ICT Jobs in Ethiopia In a stat published by Ethiopia in Data, the number of openings in ICT fields looks to be in the lower end. The data is based on the number of job ads on major newspapers and online platforms in 2019/2020. 

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